


Backwards / Forwards

by HalfBakedPoet



Series: One Shot, Two Shot, Some Shots, Blue Box [12]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Falling In Love, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Post-Episode: s12e01-02 Spyfall, Pre-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, buckle up for hurtsville beep beep, in which Sonya is a wingman, look Yaz is just now realizing it I know this is way back there in the timeline just humor me, thasmin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23934067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalfBakedPoet/pseuds/HalfBakedPoet
Summary: You're in between the sky and the ground and I can never get to youYaz realizes her feelings. The Doctor visits Gallifrey.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan, Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Series: One Shot, Two Shot, Some Shots, Blue Box [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1668127
Comments: 17
Kudos: 49





	Backwards / Forwards

**Author's Note:**

> Titled for Sarah Jaffe's song of the same name.

_“D’you ever wish summat bad would happen to you so the bullies would have to be nice or at least leave you alone?” asked Poppy. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose by the taped part of the frame. Yaz knew her friend only wore tape on her glasses as a nod to Harry Potter, not because anyone had broken them._

_“No,” said Yaz, biting into her sandwich. Peanut butter again. Across the cafeteria, she eyed Izzy Flint, who smirked at her gaggle of friends, her teeth in braces. Rumor had it Izzy had gotten her braces tangled with Eddie Ryans and they’d had to stay like that for hours while a dentist got them apart. Rumor also had it that she’d be a natural beauty when they finally came off. Among the throng, Taylor Grant preened into a compact mirror, applying lip gloss, and Yaz rolled her eyes. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to me, but I wish summat would happen to_ them _. Teach ‘em not to be bullies. Make ‘em better people.”_

_“That’ll be the day,” said Poppy. She zipped her lunch box and seemed to dither on anticipation. Finally, she blurted, “D’you want to come for tea at mine this week? My mum’s baking. You’ve never had jammy dodgers like hers, fresh out the oven.”_

_“S’alright,” Yaz mumbled into her peanut butter. “Got a bit of homework to catch up and that biology exam’s coming up.” She avoided looking at the way Poppy’s face fell. “Another time. Promise.”_

“Yaz.” As though underwater, the Doctor’s voice roused Yaz from her daydream with a soft touch. “We’re back.” Yaz blinked several times to get her bearings; the TARDIS had landed with its signature thump, Graham and Ryan were headed out the front door with rucksacks in tow, her own bag sat at her feet, and the corner of her block peeked in through the door with sunshine. Ryan turned to wave, and the Doctor waved back.

“Oh. We are,” said Yaz. She tried to mask the note of disappointment in her voice.

“Something the matter?” asked the Doctor, tilting her head. Keen, bright eyes bored into Yaz, and she shook her head.

“No, ‘m alright. Always an adjustment, coming home.”

“Anything I can do for that?” the Doctor asked, rummaging in her pockets. “Got a supplement… I’ll bet it’s the temporal shift, sometimes humans get this bit of dyspepsia coming off the TARDIS after a long bout in the vortex…”

“I’m fine,” Yaz smiled, gently pushing away the Doctor’s hands, which were full of what looked like wrapped boiled sweets. “Medically, I’m fine. You of all people should know that.”

“Come to think of it, I don’t,” said the Doctor, plunging her hands into her pockets again. Out came the stethoscope, which she plugged into her ears. She held the diaphragm flush against Yaz’s chest, and Yaz felt her own heart beat marginally faster. “Good strong pulse you’ve got, Yaz,” said the Doctor idly, not noticing the uptick, or else pretending not to. “Nice deep breath for me, if you please…” Yaz obeyed, inhaling as instructed, and the Doctor moved around her, patting the stethoscope around her ribcage. Yaz tried not to fidget as the chest piece grazed under her bra through her shirt, or when the Doctor took her blood pressure, first two fingers over Yaz’s wrist while she inflated the cuff. Satisfied, the Doctor coiled her instruments and pocketed them.

“Vitals look and sound good. You’ll be fine,” said the Doctor with a grin. She produced a sticker—a TARDIS, Yaz couldn’t help smiling when she saw—from her pocket, which she peeled herself. “Good behavior,” she added, sticking it precisely to Yaz’s jacket.

Yaz shouldered her rucksack, but dawdled in the doorway. “You going home, then? To Gallifrey?”

The Doctor’s pleasant expression darkened for a split second before she responded, a little too quickly. “Nah. TARDIS needed a bit of a tune-up in the electrical routing… had a spare part I needed to pick up in the Cat’s Eye nebula.”

Still, Yaz lingered, one eyebrow digging into a furrow. “All right, well don’t shock yourself into another body while we’re out, yeah?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said the Doctor, the tension in her shoulders easing. The crease between her own eyebrows vanished. “See you in two weeks, then?”

“You bet,” said Yaz, and she closed the door behind her. Steps from her building, she turned around to the groan of the TARDIS dematerializing, and the blue box was gone.

The Doctor flicked a dial on the console. Shouldn’t have told them about going home to Gallifrey, she thought, flipping the hourglass. And now I’ve lied to Yaz, well done, Doctor.

A soft whine permeated the air, the TARDIS chiding her.

“I know you don’t want to go home, but there’s got to be something there, anything I can salvage, any time we haven’t visited that’s not burning…” She pressed a handful of buttons. “Just got to circumvent the Time Lock, dodge the Time War, shoot us to the end of the universe…” She pulled the lever up, and the TARDIS thudded to the ground. A face full of ash and red dust met her at the door.

“Not to worry,” she said to quell her nerves, striding back to the console. “Just got to go back a tick further…” More buttons, a crank turning, another landing thud. Back out the door, same result: burning Citadel, the cracked glass dome, great black flumes of smoke. Again. Another ratcheting hourglass spin, switches flipped. Lever, thud, Gallifrey aflame. _Again_. Buttons stabbed more insistently with frantic fingers, sonic to the vortex gauge, a whole custard cream crammed into her mouth for luck, lever, thud. Smoke and rubble and fire.

The Doctor fell to her knees in the TARDIS doorway. Gallifrey had always been tinted a burnt red, like an Earth sunset, but it only seemed bloody now, as soot spiraled in the air. Flames licked the main spire, and the Doctor bit her lip against the swell in her throat. So the Master had been thorough in his carnage, just finished at the moment Gallifrey had reappeared at the edge of the universe. Just like him. Her hands curled into fists and she found herself curled against her knees, beating the dirt as she could only scream.

“Yasmin, you haven’t touched your food,” Najia wheedled. “You sure you’re alright?”

Yaz pushed rice around her plate with her fork. “Just tired, Mum. You know the Doctor keeps us busy, traveling all the time—Mum!” Najia lunged across the table to feel Yaz’s forehead.

“No fever,” she said, half disappointed. Sonya smirked, and Yaz made a face back. “I’ll have to have a word with your Doctor. Something’s not right and I’m not convinced she’s feeding you enough on your travels.”

“It’s fine, Mum,” said Yaz, picking up her glass. “Lots of good stuff to eat where we go.”

“Yeah, her _girlfriend’s_ taking good care of her,” said Sonya, and Yaz choked on her water.

“We’ve been over this, she’s not my girlfriend,” said Yaz, once she’d stopped coughing.

“Could’ve fooled me,” muttered Sonya into her own cup. Yaz punched her arm. “Hey!”

“Girls,” said Hakim patiently, and the table fell silent again, but for the clatter of forks.

Yaz waited until her family’s plates had emptied before she stood. Fortunately, it was Sonya’s turn to clear up. “Going to bed. Good pakora, Dad,” she said, kissing his cheek.

“What do you mean ‘good pakora’, Yasmin? You always say my pakora’s terrible! Yaz!” Hakim’s voice followed her down the hall.

Yaz shut the door to her room, her back against it as she slid to the floor. She hugged her knees to her chest, a vast, nameless feeling gnawing at the insides of her ribs. Two weeks back to normal, no being woken up by the wheezing of the TARDIS or the Doctor bursting into her room with toast shaped like a paper frog, and to top it off, she’d better have a good excuse for why she’d missed so much work. She didn’t know how she could stand it. What was this niggling sense of dread she felt? Her thoughts strayed to the Doctor, making the frog hop along the floor. _Origami toast, Yaz! Just invented it! Look, I can make a crane, too. Only I haven’t figured out the more complicated ones like a sheep or a dragon…_

Yaz scowled at her knees. She was home, why was it so hard to feel settled? _Always onto the next thing with you, Yaz,_ she recalled Graham saying. _Down to business, then the next problem to solve._

 _You can’t just be content with what you have,_ she remembered Poppy saying when they were kids.

_“Poppy, I’m sorry…” said Yaz to her shoes. “I don’t… I don’t think we can be friends.”_

_“And why not?” Poppy’s cheeks flushed. “We_ are _friends, or at least we_ were _friends, why can’t we carry on?”_

_“It’s not you,” said Yaz quickly. “It’s just…” She hugged her books closer to her chest, nauseated at the memory of Taylor Grant's remarks. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”_

_“That’s a lie. You’re ashamed of me,” said Poppy, screwing up her eyebrows to stem the flow of tears. The school fluorescent light glinted off her taped glasses._

_“No, Poppy, I…” But Poppy had already turned and run away. “I don’t want them to… come after you… next,” Yaz mumbled to her retreating back. She swallowed the lump in her throat and swiped her eyes. This was a good thing, she told herself firmly. Poppy wouldn’t be tormented for hanging out with the likes of her. She’d be safe. Maybe she’d understand one day. Still, she thought, trudging back to her locker, somehow it stung more than anything Izzy Flint and her gang could have said._

The Doctor slumped at the console, rolling her sonic with a fingertip, glaring at the light that gleamed off it. “I don’t understand,” she said, the mixture of grief and anger and an odd sense of freedom mingled with an insatiable craving creased in high relief across her face. The TARDIS beeped softly at her. “No, I get _how_ , I just don’t get _why_.”

Chirrup. _Don’t torment yourself, Doctor, he’s always been—_

“Always been what, eh? Always been a psychopath? Off-kilter and bang out of order? Shrinks people for fun? Thanks, mate, I’ll remember that in the future,” she snapped.

_Gallifrey was my home too, Doctor._

“Well we haven’t got it now, have we? Every time I think we have it back, it’s gone again.” A gaslight of a home, if ever there was one. The Doctor gripped the sonic as tightly as she could, her eyes overflowing.

_I still have you._

The Doctor’s hearts squeezed painfully, and she became more aware of their labored beating; even their twin pulses seemed to hurt, every vein and artery in her body made known with each quadruple flutter. “Yeah. I’ve got you, too. Couple of homeless travelers, aren’t we? Pair of vagabonds.”

_And the fam._

“They’ve got Sheffield, haven’t they? Eventually, they won’t need me, or else they’ll…” She stopped, unwilling to voice the alternative.

_I know._

“You do. You’ve seen it all, haven’t you? Or at least, the aftermath.” The Doctor stroked the edge of the monitor with her thumb, her cheek resting on the control panel. They sat in silence for a bit, but for their breathing. The TARDIS inhaled and exhaled Artron energy; the Doctor inhaled and exhaled oxygen; their respective tidal hush drifting into the space around them.

The Doctor rose to her feet. “One last look,” she said finally.

_Don’t. It’ll only hurt._

“I need to.”

_I can’t stop you._

“No, you can’t.” She stopped at the door, casting a glance over her shoulder at the console. “Last look. Then forwards.”

Yaz pulled her towel from the family rack beside the shower. Longest day at work, but there wasn’t much a shower couldn’t fix, she thought, wrapping it around herself, the residual steam misting colder against her skin. Not that her temporary return was a taxing assignment (the Doctor had at some point gotten friends at MI6 to excuse Yaz’s absences from Sheffield with her superiors), but even police work seemed dull compared to the space time vortex, the rush of the TARDIS and the thrill of opening the door to somewhere alien, the Doctor beaming over the console at her in the amber light of the crystals… Yaz shook her head, wet hair slapping against her shoulders. Still eight more days before she’d go back to all that.

She crossed the hall to her room, the door creaking shut behind her. Rifling through her bottom drawer, Yaz frowned: her holey flannel trousers and baggy t-shirt should have been tucked under her jeans. She glanced at her rucksack, deflated in the corner, which could only mean her favorite pajamas were in her room aboard the TARDIS. And she could picture them, too, forgotten in the bottom of a drawer by her bed.

Her eyes strayed to her phone on the nightstand. She could call the Doctor… but no. Pajamas weren’t important enough to interrupt her doing whatever it was the Doctor did while she was away, even if she had lied about going back to Gallifrey. And the Doctor wouldn’t tell the fam about it, either, but her mood would turn sour enough for Yaz to note the pucker between her eyebrows and point it out. Or at least mention it in an aside to Ryan and Graham, who would agree, and they’d all nudge together.

Shorts and a hoodie would do. Clothed, Yaz lay back on her bed, staring at the ceiling, her fingers twitching for her phone.

“Not now,” she told herself sternly. “Only been a week, not even!” Still, she fought the impulse even to text, just to check in. “Probably only been a minute for her, then you’ll go and look needy.”

Admit it, she thought, you don’t know how to be friends.

“I know how to be friends,” she muttered, but the memory of bringing the Doctor home for tea—just before the spider incident—pinched the corner of her mouth.

_We didn’t know she had any friends._

_Always said she was married to her job…_

Yaz frowned, even though that small part of her knew that her meddling family—though they meant well—was at least partway right. Even though Sonya would never let her hear the end of it. Even though she had balked at bringing any friends home in the time before the Doctor’s appearance on that train. She shook her head again, the thought of the Doctor romanticizing about owning a flat with a purple sofa edging into her consciousness.

_Are you two seeing each other?_

The memory of Najia gave her pause. It was just a mum thing, Yaz thought, just one of the more annoying—but inevitable—facets of mothering. The back of her neck prickled when she remembered the Doctor asking, _Are we?_ Had she been too quick to reject the idea in favor of friendship? Just mates. Her own words ghosted about her ears, making them burn. Just mates. And the Doctor had accepted it and moved on with a shrug, as if to say, “could’ve fooled me.” Just mates. Yaz chewed her lower lip, as though she could taste the words that she’d said months ago, a casual, discordant flavor, misaligned with the sudden maelstrom of nerves brewing in her stomach. Just mates.

The Doctor kicked a stone into the chasm below the Citadel, waiting the familiar eight seconds it took to hit the bottom; a metallic clang she’d used so many times as a child to signal the Master at play. Her mouth flattened against the rising bile in her throat. This was the closest she’d gotten to the wreckage; the number of times she’d visited before, she hadn’t been able to make it five steps away from the TARDIS; most often her knees buckled before she made it out the door. She ground her teeth, swallowing hard. At the edge of the bridge across, her legs shook against her will like a reluctant foal new to halter. A boot lifted and set itself back in the same spot. She could see the tower of the Academy’s library, all the books and scrolls and data frames smoking ruin through a shattered window. Her tongue snaked past her teeth, between her lips.

“Deep breath, then take a step,” she told herself, though she heeded not a note of encouragement she’d grafted into her voice. “Just one, first one’s always hardest. It’ll get easier. One at a time.” Her fist curled tighter around her sonic, which had read no signs of sentient life, not two minutes prior. There were no bodies in sight, but the smell of burning flesh told her they weren’t far.

And she exhaled. “Not like this,” she said, hanging her head.

Trudging back to the TARDIS, not even a kilometer away, Yaz’s request echoed. _Can we visit your home?_

“No humans on Gallifrey,” muttered the Doctor, kicking at another clod. _Another time_.

The door creaked shut behind her and she staggered to the console, her legs finally turning to jelly under her. The TARDIS made no noise of admonishment, note of encouragement, nor any gesture to suggest much of anything. The silence was enough of a statement: _Told you so._

Slower than usual, she set to work aligning the console to Sheffield’s coordinates. “We’ll just pop ahead to pickup day, yeah?”

No argument. The corners of her mouth pulled asunder as she flipped a switch, grazing the telepathic circuit with her first knuckle. Couldn’t have been three hours she’d been ghosting on Gallifrey, she thought, rotating a dial. But still, all that wibbly wobbliness, two weeks in the future in Sheffield wouldn’t be too hard to muster. Best put on a happier face for the fam. Another deep breath, and it felt like a grimace. She pulled the main lever, the TARDIS’ puffing and chugging somehow more fatigued than usual.

A knock roused Yaz from her dozing.

“Can I come in?” Sonya asked, her voice muffled.

Yaz rubbed her eyes. “Yeah, sure.” She stifled a yawn.

Her sister edged into view and shut the door behind her. “You alright?”

“’M fine,” said Yaz, stretching her arms.

“Can I come sit?” Yaz nodded and Sonya placed herself on the corner of the bed, cross-legged. “You’ve been back a week and you’ve barely done anything but work and sleep.” She wasted no time, Yaz thought, just like Sonya to cut to the chase, down to the bone.

“Told you, I’m fine, just—”

“Tired. Yeah, that’s an excuse. A week’s plenty of time to adjust, Yaz.” Sonya fiddled with a thread at the edge of the blanket, and Yaz cast her gaze to the wall. “You’ve not been yourself. If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you’re bored, preoccupied, or else you’re in love.”

Yaz’s attention snapped back to her sister. _“What?”_

Sonya smirked a little. “Come on.”

“No, come off it.”

“No, _you_ do. It’s pretty romantic, your life now,” she said. “Off traveling who knows where with some mysterious stranger you’ve done nothing but make heart eyes at since I’ve seen her?”

“I’m not making heart eyes at the Doctor.”

“Yeah? And I’m not failing out of maths.”

“You wouldn’t fail out of maths if you’d just studied more—”

“Alright _Mum,_ we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you and your life, you can pack it in about school.” Sonya crossed her arms.

“Wouldn’t have to if you’d just work for it…”

“Different convo, Yaz. Still talking about you.”

“What about me? I said it’s nothing.” Yaz massaged the back of her neck.

“Yaz. Look at me.” Yaz met Sonya’s insistent gaze; her eyebrows aloft on her round face. “I’ve just come to talk to you _in your room_. Is that nothing?” For a moment, they stared each other down, until Yaz sighed, relenting into her lap. They weren’t particularly fond of one another at all times, but Sonya had a point.

“No.”

Sonya smiled, a little smugly. “So I was saying, you’re not yourself. Being home doesn’t suit you, don’t try to deny it. Not saying that just ‘cause I want your room.” She spoke the last out of one side of her mouth, eyeing the window, which gave the best view and sunlight of all the rooms in the flat. “Your life is so much more exciting out there, with your Doctor and your new friends. And we both know you haven’t any other mates to take care of you.” Yaz shot her a look. “What I’m saying is… it’s okay to miss that. Just don’t forget to come home sometimes? Mum and Dad drive me mad with it just being me here.”

Yaz bit her lip. “You know I hate it when you’re right.”

“Who’s the older sister here, anyway?”

“Still me,” said Yaz, flicking Sonya’s forehead.

“Hey!”

“No, c’mere,” said Yaz, grappling her into a hug. “And Son… Thanks.”

“What am I here for?” Sonya mumbled into Yaz’s shoulder. “And you do.”

“What?”

“Love her. The Doctor.”

“No I don—”

“Yeah, you do.”

“We’re _friends.”_

“You can fool Mum but you can’t fool me. Haven’t seen you this bothered about anyone since that time they caught you climbing in Danny Biswas’ window.”

“That was once!”

“And he turned out to be gay.”

“He did not!”

“Or bi, seen him with his boyfriend ‘round.”

“Now that you mention it…” A muffled wheezing sound interrupted them, and Yaz sat bolt upright.

“What’s the matter?”

“Be right back,” said Yaz, leaping up to grab her jacket.

“Right. No heart eyes,” Sonya muttered after her as Yaz darted out of the room.

A foot from the door, her arm outstretched, the Doctor nearly ran headlong into Yaz. Breathless, without even a hello, Yaz pulled her into a hug. The Doctor flinched, but allowed Yaz to hold her, relaxing into the touch as she folded her arms up to hug Yaz awkwardly back. Tears pricked her eyes and she willed them back into their ducts. Casting about for a stray detail, something else to focus on, she noted that Yaz smelled like lavender, maybe a hint of cinnamon and vanilla.

“Miss me?” she managed, forcing her voice past the catch in her throat.

“You’re early!” said Yaz with delight, and the Doctor’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “I thought about texting you to check in, and my favorite pajamas are in my room and work was awful and… it’s just so good to see you.” It all came out in a rush, and Yaz stopped abruptly, her cheeks flushed.

“How early?” The Doctor glanced at the TARDIS console, and a small light winked at her.

 _You touched the telepathic circuits, clumsy. Couldn’t help myself._ The Doctor glared back, and the light flashed again.

“A week, only settled into work again.”

“A week!”

“Did you get that spare part you were after?” Oh. That.

“Must’ve slipped my mind. Yaz, you said a week?”

“You didn’t mean to be early?”

“No, I thought I was catching up at pickup day, but seems the TARDIS had other ideas.” An indignant trill from the console. _You hush,_ she thought at the console.

“Still wrangling the controls?”

“Oi! I’m only doing my best, it’s all I can do!”

“It’s no bother, I was hoping you’d come back.” Yaz beamed, and the Doctor could feel the tension returning to her forehead, denting the space between her eyebrows. She made her best effort to return the smile, and Yaz noticed, her eyes narrowing a fraction. “You alright, Doctor?”

“It’s nothing,” said the Doctor quickly, thumbs tucked into her bracers. “Are you?”

“Am I?”

“You seem right chuffed to see me.”

“It’s been longer for me than it has for you.”

“True.”

“You can ask Sonya. …I might have been out of sorts.” Yaz looked down, digging the ball of her foot into the floor.

“Well that makes a pair of us.”

“It does?” Her eyes widened, eager for more details. Best to steer away from that.

“Only forgot my part! They were expecting me. Ought to go back and get it.”

“Can I come with you?” Still eager. One more try.

“That wouldn’t be fair to Ryan and Graham, would it?”

“No, but…”

The Doctor herded Yaz back out the door. Yaz’s mouth hung open as she stood, in her second favorite pajamas on the sidewalk. “Back in a tick,” said the Doctor before Yaz could protest, and she dashed back to the console, her coat flying behind. “You don’t get to do this to me, madam, not in the slightest,” she scolded the TARDIS.

_You shouldn’t be alone right now. Not after that._

The Doctor ground her teeth, her lungs inflating more forcefully than usual. “Well, now we’ve got to find a spare part and keep this up.”

_Not the worst lie you’ve told. It’s better than what you did to Amy, making her wait all those years, anyway._

“And a fine bit of help you were then!”

_New body, new rules._

“Cheeky.”

Yaz stayed rooted to her spot on the sidewalk, her mouth still open. She glanced back up at her flat window to see Sonya lowering her phone. _What?_ Yaz mouthed up at her, her arms spread in annoyance, but Sonya just laughed and ducked further inside. Have to have another word with her, Yas thought grumpily, as a fresh gust kicked up around her, the TARDIS returning to its spot. The door squeaked, and the Doctor peeked back out at her, half apologetic smile plastered on.

“Sorry about that, best to do these things while I’m thinking of them, or else it’s a hundred and five years down and I’ll just remember while I’m clipping my toenails.” She held up what looked like a microscope with frayed wires and tubes dangling off it. “Got the part. Micro-spectrometer. It’ll help us see and talk to nanospecies we might encounter, project them up onto the monitors. Even microbes need a little help sometimes.”

“You going to let me back in to get my pajamas? I do live here part time as well.” Yaz folded her arms. Her delight at the Doctor’s return had waned somewhat, having been corralled outside like a sheep, but still, that bound of joy from hearing the TARDIS outside her flat skipped in her chest.

“Oh, sure thing,” said the Doctor, scooting aside. Yaz set off down the hall to her room, the TARDIS pulsing warm welcome around her. Even the metallic smell of the console felt like home, and she smiled to herself. “Guess I’ll kip here for the next week while you lot finish up your human stuff,” the Doctor added, and Yaz turned back to her.

“Oh?”

“Tricky things, micro-spectrometers. Shouldn’t attach it in the vortex or I’d end up a microbe myself. Besides, it’s only a week, and you can pop by for tea whenever you like. You won’t have to miss me that way.” A flicker of something Yaz couldn’t name, a shadow, or a breath of exasperation crossed the Doctor’s face. But then, the Doctor flashed her most winning smile.

Yaz fought the urge to smile back and lost. “I’d like that. And you can come up to mine if you like. If you’re not too busy with your…”

“Micro-spectrometer.” The Doctor started tinkering with the loose wires.

“Right.”

“I’d like that, too. Tea at yours.” She looked up and Yaz’s breath hitched; the Doctor’s eyes had brightened considerably, that spark of ingenuity returning where there had previously been only mire. Maybe Sonya did have a point. Yaz would remember to follow up on the Doctor’s other travels later, but for the moment she nodded shyly, her lower lip between her teeth.

“It’s a deal.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, fam!
> 
> I had a bit of a COVID scare this past weekend but it's good news, I'm fine after much bed rest and a negative test. 
> 
> I thought it would be an interesting character study to parallel Yaz discovering her feelings in a more concrete way, while the Doctor grieves Gallifrey, sort of. Sonya is indeed fun to write, thanks for that tip @freefallvertigo!
> 
> As always, smash any buttons you like, comments are wonderful, and remember to be kind.
> 
> XOJO


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